


Eternal

by OtterMcKilbourne (p_3a)



Series: NaNoWriMo 2015 [14]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Forgiveness, Immortality, M/M, non-consensual magic use, post legion war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5350034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p_3a/pseuds/OtterMcKilbourne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without permission, Wrathion casts a spell to make Anduin immortal.</p><p>Anduin notices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eternal

Anduin didn’t notice what had happened until it was the morning of his sixtieth birthday, and he looked in the mirror, and realised he didn’t look a day over forty.

His hair was still golden, with only the odd streak of silver running through it. It had been that way since he’d first noticed the grey hairs growing in in his mid-thirties. And now he was sixty, and it was the same. His face, too, had not deteriorated as he had expected - the laugh-lines and crows’ feet looked the same as they did in the portrait of his family, hung up on the wall by his dresser. He looked between his two faces - the painted one, and the real one. And he couldn’t tell the difference.

Maybe he was going senile. It did run on his mother’s side of the family, after all, and he was a grandfather now! Only by a few months, but still. Surely it was about time he should be going batty.

But he raised it with his consort, herself now looking much older than he did, and she agreed with him. It did seem strange. She said she’d assumed it was some effect of his Holiness; and while Anduin did agree that the Light expanded the lifespans of those it touched, he didn’t believe it ought to have this effect.

It could wait until after the birthday celebrations, at least.

And it did. But the first day back to regular work, Anduin raised it in a court meeting. Someone, he said, was casting a spell on him - and he wanted to know who, and why, and what they wanted from him. He was mid-sentence when he realised everyone was staring at something behind him, and slightly to the side - so he turned to look as well, sure it must be something important to draw their attention from their King.

“Why are you all staring?” he said after looking, frowning slightly. “That’s just--”

His face fell.

Was it _just_?

He realised, after a moment of suspended horror, exactly why people had begun to stare. Here was another who looked not a day over forty, too. Whose frown-lines and silver hairs had stopped when middle age had barely reached him. Who definitely had an extended lifespan; longer than Anduin could even begin to think of.

He loved him dearly. And perhaps it was just a knee-jerk reaction. But Anduin couldn’t help but begin to suspect that the spellcaster in question was none other than his fellow King: Wrathion.

He changed the subject, but he cornered Wrathion after the meeting. He had to know.

“What do you _mean_ , have I been _casting spells on you_?” Wrathion’s gravelly voice - never quite the same after the war with the Legion, but nothing was - seemed incredulous. “Anduin Wrynn, in all these years we’ve known each other, I’d never--”  
“Don’t lie to me,” Anduin snapped. “I haven’t been _aging_ , Wrathion. What’s all that about?”

The look of surprise, then guilt, on Wrathion’s face - and his extended silence - told Anduin all he needed to know.

“We’ll talk about this upstairs,” Anduin said, quietly - but it was like the rumbling of thunder over the horizon, and Wrathion would know what it meant.

Once they were alone, he made his anger clear. He was _furious_. Of all the times Wrathion did something without asking first, this was the time he chose? It couldn’t be something inconsequential, or something temporary? It had to be _this_? That which would have him watch his children, his grandchildren, his _great grandchildren_ , growing old and dying without him? Watching everyone who wasn’t a dragon, or an elf, fade away?

Wrathion quietly admitted that it was the reason he had been taking Anduin on adventures far from home; that he’d been encouraging him to spend time with Broll and Valeera, who had always been more of Anduin’s father’s friends than Anduin’s, because they were more fitting friends for him now. And that he was sorry - but preserving Anduin’s life was what was best for Azeroth.

But Anduin wasn’t in the mood to hear it. He bristled, and bitter, sorry words spilled from his mouth: “You just want to make sure I don’t have any family _either_ just because _you_ don’t!”

He regretted them immediately. Especially as Wrathion didn’t even flinch; it was if he’d been expecting them. He calmly explained that he considered Anduin’s family his own - as Anduin himself had given him permission several times to do. And try as he might, even Wrathion, master of smoothness, couldn’t keep his voice from cracking as he tried to explain that perhaps now he wouldn’t have to be alone as he watched them waste away, it would be more bearable.

Anduin felt awful.

But that didn’t mean that what Wrathion had done was alright.

He sent him away. He needed to think about this.

He did think. For two weeks. He couldn’t rush this. Every time he felt his heart break and himself wishing the dragon back, he reminded himself that this needed to be done another way, and did not reach out to him. He had to know in his _head_ , as well as in his heart, that he wanted to forgive him.

He thought about how lonely he would feel. Whether he, too, would deceive another in order to keep some steady company throughout the years that now stretched without limit in front of him. He thought about how heartbroken he would be if he had offered someone such companionship, and they had refused.

As it often did at these pivotal moments in Anduin Llane Wrynn’s life, the Light settled the final answer gently into his heart - and at the beginning of the third week, he called Wrathion back.

“I understand,” he said. “And I still very much think you should have sought my permission, and I could not condone you performing this a second time. But…” and he took the dragon’s trembling hands in his own, “I forgive you.”

He abdicated the throne at the age of seventy, allowing his daughter to take the crown. She was as fine a ruler as Stormwind could ever ask for. Anduin loved her dearly, but took his leave of her life at the time when he would have, had he a natural lifespan - at the age of a hundred, with a sending-away ceremony that made everyone cry. And then it was just he and his Wrathion.

They roamed Azeroth together for hundreds of years to come, slaying evil where it appeared and helping others where they could. Occasionally, they’d meet with their elf-friends; until even those meetings became scarce, and then not at all.

Eventually, they faded into legend - but every now and again, there’d still be a sighting of the Last Black Dragon and his faithful rider; and word would still be sent to Stormwind’s monarch that they could keep a look-out.


End file.
